Frustration

I suppose it's a possibility that TLR is somewhere in spooks ancestry, but I doubt it's recent enough to have a real influence.

Most definitely, just like how wearing the plate of another Radiant would block surges, see the Windrunner in the starfall visions having to have the stoneward dismiss their helmet to lash them.

His plan is to finish the Cosmere by the time he's 72.

The answer to that is(and the books make this clear this is a movie problem) that the Fellowship has to sneak into Mordor, Sauron has the Pilantir(the stones that can see things far away) and can sense the ring. Riding giant eagles with 60+ foot wingspans is not sneaky. Because all three shards are bound to Roshar, not just Odium. Dalinar couldn't take people to another planet because he couldn't go there to start with.

Wow One: That is an incredibly biased and definitely unfair view of the non-cosmere works Two: I agree with it wholeheartedly. The only one I read was Alcatraz, because a friend begged me. And it sucked. I do think that WoT was slightly necessary as it gave him the fan base necessary to do things like the year of Sanderson secret projects and stuff. Also how long have you been a Sanderson for?

I'm so glad this actually got confirmed during the Koloss head munching day live stream Well not hard confirmed, as I can't tell when the unoathed entered the picture, but I think this is pretty good confirmation that when this death-rattle was written it refered to the Heralds, but was then later repurposed to refer to the Unoathed as well.

I don't think that was entirely intentional on Brandon's part as he was looking for something that aligned with the Hebrew word Adonai or Lord

Only metal, not investiture per say

Perhaps

Well I am looking at this on a writing/textual kind of standpoint. As in for logic, yes it makes sense that the contest doesn't solve everything, but the text doesn't set that up enough

Not really the reason is Odium is a sore loser who won't accept that he didn't win. And that's why there's a problem. 5,000 pages of build-up, the entire structure of WaT being forced into a 10 day format and all that for Brandon to pick up the table and throw it out the window. So either you have to see the entire rest of the series as the characters uselessly hunting after something that doesn't work, or you have to say that the contest was a massive let down and it didn't live up to what came before it. That's exactly the point. Roshar is easily comparable to 1790s level technology, makes sense for their culture to be roughly the same. I disagree that art if it doesn't "Challenge the reader" isn't doing much of anything.

That's more or less the question I'm wanting, did Battab stab someone with the diamonds first, or are these "Artificial" hemalurgic spikes.

That's actually something I hadn't thought of, I kept racking my brain trying to find a spren that could do it, but came up empty every time. I agree, just trying to make sure I'm not reading too much into it. How do you think that those questions could be phrased to tease the most out of Brandon without getting RAFO'd?

I had several questions I wanted to ask Brandon during the Koloss head munching day spoiler stream that unfortunately didn't get asked. So I thought I would make a series of topics and allow you to help me refine my thoughts on these various ideas as I prepare questions for the next opportunity. First up on that list are the crystal eye-spikes that Moash receives in WaT: What we know: The spikes are made of diamonds The spikes are filled with voidlight The spikes should kill Moash as they go through his brain but they don't The spikes allow Moash to see investiture Diamonds are associated with the body focus of the eyes in the ars arcanum What I want to know: Are the spikes Moash received hemalurgically charged or do they just work on the same fundamentals? Are there spren inside of Moash's spikes? If so which type? Could another polestone be used, or only diamonds? Can you guys think of ways I could refine these questions, or other information that would be useful for the questions to ask?

Gotcha I didn't get this at all. He talked a little about how Odium would force them to violate the contract, but nothing that I feel rises to even an attempted criticism of legalism. Brandon was the one who made it a trolley problem in the first place. That's what I don't like about it. The contest wasn't advertised as a trolley problem it was advertised as a fight. That it takes people out of the book and makes it feel disjointed from the rest of the series. One of the reasons that a little more editing would have improved the book. I think you're overthinking it, people just don't like words that don't fit the context. It even goes back to WoR where people don't like that Syl says: "Stretch forth thy hand" It just clashes with the words around it, no one else at any point in the books talks like that, so it feels off. "I'm his therapist" feels off for the same reason, it doesn't work with the context. Brandon himself pokes fun at it the next line where Kaladin admits he has no idea what a therapist is. Hard disagree.

Well yes, but actually no. So if you can cut their skin and get inside of them it can do something pretty bad. What? No clue.

Considering a spren could do it, yeah that'd work just fine.

I can understand that, but doing a Reread of Oathbringer or RoW It takes all the umph out of the scenes where Dalinar finally forces Odium to the contest. I mean they might feel like they lost, but I don't feel it. I know Kaladin's not dead so that doesn't hurt. While the lack of functional oathgates hurts, Jasnah at some point in figures out Elsegates as we can see from Szeth's wife who was in Shinover but says that she spoke with Jasnah who was the leader of their order, so she clearly was an Elsecaller and managed to get inside Urithiru. And yes Stormlight is gone but they control Urithiru which is still untouchable, their powers still work and they are for all intents and purposes safe. Not that those aren't huge downsides, but it's not even close to what I think we should see for a defeat so incredible. He's not a windrunner by the end of the book, so how does he swear the fourth ideal for the Windrunners with his first set of ideals? And we see him leaving the planet with Aux, so it's implied to not be too far distant. I took the locking mechanism as overriding them, and the spren wouldn't have the choice to allow them through. But I suppose I can accept that answer. Yeah that one's my bad I completely missed it on my read through. I never said it was bad, I said it had problems. I don't believe subversion of expectations to be good for its own sake. Nor do I find it funny. I don't think it's that bad, but it still is a bit of an issue and shows my main point. I'm sorry I'm not following. People find certain language off-putting and so it's good that it's there?

Oh excellent, thank you. It took 14 years to write the first five books, and the next couple of years are already packed. Well I definitely don't ship them, but I think the friendship is cool

Honestly everything from seeing the trail of destruction in his wake, to him being chosen as a Herald to apparently him trying to kill Cultivation. Tangentially, but they can still work together without the 20+ page romance sub-plot, which just tonally and pacing wise felt so off. The Azimir oathgate Ack, sorry Shattered Plains. Really? Oh please tell me it's there, I'll go look in a second. I'm really hoping for a return to form tonally tight and smooth flowing trilogy like we got in era 1, and that it takes off. Only hope he doesn't take that approach with stormlight, or I won't hold SA 6 until 2043. I'm not sure if I would prefer that or a mid ending. He has talked about how Tolkien did that with The Hobbit, so that's possible.

Okay I've thought a lot about this one. I remember after RoW that a lot of people had some negative opinions about it, but I don't think I've ever seen as much backlash for a Brandon Sanderson book as this one. What I liked: This was perhaps the largest leap forward this series has taken since WoR. Epic in scale and finally it feels like things are starting to move after OB, lore is coming every bit as fast as it did in RoW, and characters are finally reaching what we've been building towards since 2010. So why do so many people have problems with it? What I did not like: As you can see the dislikes form a rather long list. Now why is this? Brandon is clearly capable of writing excellent novels, so what's happening? Well I think the answer actually goes back to RoW, and all the books that come after it. RoW is the first book of Brandon's where I began to notice some weaknesses, Navani felt off, the one liners didn't land right, the foreshadowing didn't work just right. Nothing was terrible don't get me wrong, but it just felt slightly off, a 60% after consistent and reliable 90s. Going into TLM things didn't change Marasi suffered from the same problems as Navani, a few plot holes began to appear and just in general felt off. Not terrible, but off. Then came the secret projects and everything mostly went back to the old Brandon, except for the last one. The Sunlit Man, which once again suffered from the same offness. Then came Wind and Truth, which more than any of the others suffered greatly from this problem. More strange contrivances in the plot than ever before, more problems, every single character felt at least slightly off, except for once Shallan. The language and word choice were just out there in ways they never had been before, even for Brandon's writing. The answer to all of this I believe is simple: editing time. Brandon has been saying for a while that his books are getting forced out as fast as he can write them. Part of that means that some things don't get quite the polish that they probably should. I think this is where the problems started, and why for the most part they don't appear in the Secret novels as they were published by Brandon on his own time, with the exception of The Sunlit Man, which had to such to meet the deadline at the end of 2023 It's been noted how far out the publication date for Ghostbloods is: 2028, part of the reason being that Brandon wanted the entire series in hand to revise together before publication. Here's hoping that the problems will disappear with this plan, and that everything works together again.

I need say no more. Yes, that is a factually true statement, nothing in the mortal realm is eternal. That doesn't mean Ati likes destroying. Aditionally Yes Ati was greatly warped by Ruin. Why did it not happen to Tanavast? It did, why was he still capable of self reflection? No clue. Not really. He fought against Odium because he felt his "Honor"(WaT page 1063) demanded it, he pushed the Heralds in the Desolations because that's what Honor wanted. His horrified reaction after the Aherietam was because he realized he had become senseless only wanting victory, to the point Honor begins to develop plans for the greater Cosmere just like Odium. I must disagree most strongly. Dominion is perhaps the scariest of all of them for making an emperor, you want the shards to stop genocidal maniacs, Dominion would be the genocidal maniac. Ambition wouldn't stop at one planet, or even any particular number until it controls everything that is a war with all of the shards. Honor as stated above would cause problems. Cultivation as well. Reason and Invention would both be particularly dangerous. War leads to the greatest number of inventions, Reason drowns out emotions such as Sympathy and Love. Odium as has been shown cannot work, and hates staying on a single planet, it wants war. Yes Arabia, which despite it's size due to the necessity of fresh water is very sparsely populated, with high population density. Controlling that as opposed to the entire world is like hold up a plate as opposed to the entire kitchen. How do you get them to all of the contents? You can't do this everywhere all at once you have limited capabilities, and anytime you leave one group alone they lose internal cohesion and fall apart. No government has come even close to tackling the logistical challenges of leading a country that large. You have to answer with the regional difficulties of every area on the planet. If the local government can solve an issue why do they need you? They will very quickly lose loyalty to you, and you can't just force them into submission: where would you get the soldiers for it? The other areas are having the same problem. "Limited?" Autonomy is all over their stuff. And what do you mean "stuck?" Nalthis is one of the most advanced systems in the Cosmere, they have the single most open and freely traded magic system in the Cosmere, and they have a fully developed customs agency for interplanetary travel. Meanwhile if you live on Taldain you're essentially a prisoner as you are forbidden by Autonomy from leaving. Scadrial survived a direct confrontation of its shards. Am I? Worlds with Shardaic intervention: Ashyn, Roshar, Scadrial, Taldain Worlds we know had 90+% of the population wiped out: Ashyn, Scadrial, Roshar. At the very least 3/4 worlds we know of as having high levels of shardaic intervention end up losing the vast majority of their population, and we don't have enough information on Taldain to say if they fall in this boat or not. Alright, I'll be real this is taking up way more time than I'd like. I'll respond much less frequently now if at all to this topic.

The shard does not care about good or evil, only that it saw Tanavast breaking an oath. Um, no he really was not. Every single one of the vessels who knew Ati described him as kindhearted and gentle. Tanvast even calls him the kindest of the original sixteen. He very much would realize if he was hurting others, and was not even closely aligned to the Intent of Ruin. Ruin changed that. Yeah after almost ten thousand years, two thousand of which were without a vessel which dramatically sped up the process. I don't think any vessel could hold out that long. What makes you say that? Rayse and Odium lined up very nicely he didn't need to resist it, they wanted the same things It wasn't until BAM and the false desolation that there began to be a conflict because the power liked her more. Tanavast began succumbing to his Intent very early on, after the cataclysm of Ashyn he finds himself infuriated that the Singers are less faithful in his worship than when he left. We don't have enough information on Cultivation to make a call. That remains to be seen. So far not a single vessel has shown the ability to long resist their shard's intent. Sazed hasn't even made it 400 years and he's almost incapacitated by that fight. And @therunner gave a very good rundown of the problems that any of the shards would have. Really only Devotion seems like it would be good at direct intervention without causing problems. 1/16 is not good odds. We see many problems. Honor doesn't accept human frailties. Honor doesn't accept oathbreaking. If you say you won't stand up until you receive permission, Honor wants you to sit there for ten years waiting. Additionally Honor would very much punish you for failing an oath or betraying him. I feel like I'm getting two different ideas on how this theoretical government will work from you. On the one hand you want the shard to stop all bad outcomes and possibilities from occurring, but also people have free rule and can implement their own policies without the shard. I don't think that those two are compatible. Grassroots religious movements take time, which conflicts with the other statement you made here: So how do they do it? A dramatic an immediate(and necessarily quite violent) takeover, or a grassroots religious revolution? It can't be both. Fuedalism and the divine right of kings are very different. And yes the divine right of kings, that the reigning monarch is chosen by God to rule and must be followed in its commonly assumed form is the doctrine of the Church of England, which has millions of baptized individuals. Yes it is alive and well in our modern world. And while yes I see that it was only one example the fact of the matter is that no matter what idea it is we can find it. Ideas do not die, they change in exact form and popularity but it's not something that any human or Shard could accomplish in anything even approximating human lifespans without the most brutal oppression of said idea imaginable that I do not think that it could be considered as a valid point in favor of a Shardaic government. How? How do they collect taxes, enforce laws, supply resources? That's just not possible. Taravangian couldn't even torture Dalinar and look at what Cultivation was doing at Kharbranth at the same time. How is a Shard suppose to take control of the entire world all at once? We also don't know that Ambition didn't. Given the Intent, I would doubt it, but not the point. The point is that Nalthis is much better off, and has had a much better history than any other planet where the Shards intervened directly. And how would Endowment being Interventionalist help if Retribution attacked? Honestly her not being supper invested in the system means she has more power to fight Retribution with, now it wouldn't be enough obviously, but it's something. But notably they did not have 90% of their population wiped out repeatedly. So can they make decisions that the Shard doesn't like?

Correct, sorry. Yes, Radar does work just fine. Interesting I didn't know that. But looking into it there are two types, passive sonar and active sonar. Passive sonar is looking for unique sounds generated by the target itself, which will not work as the only sound will be that of the radiant moving through the water, no engine noises or anything like that, which will make them very hard to find. Active sonar would work, but Windrunners are much more maneuverable in water than torpedoes are, able to pull 90 degree turns and other feats that torpedoes cannot match. Gotcha

Which he didn't notice until after the first two and a half thousand years, and then spent the next two and a half thousand years basically absent. And then when he tried to fight it more the Shard rejected him. That's exactly the opposite of the present and helpful shard you are proposing. Yes but you didn't ask me to pretend to be a roman governor, or a Chinese emperor, you asked me to pretend that I was a feudal lord. And while technically there was Japanese feudalism, generally when we talk about feudalism we're talking about its European variant, which means Christianity. Now assuming I'm a roman governor we have a very different situation, but not one that I believe makes your case stronger. While a multitude of constantly changing gods makes acquiring their loyalty easier, it also makes them fickle. Emperor Caligula declared war against Neptune, not exactly the picture of willing obedience you want. Not really. While true in the USA we don't see a lot of this, a lot of that has to do with the fact that the people who started the country rejected such a notion. And yet even here it just takes a different form(mostly because we don't have kings) but how many people on both sides believe that their particular Presidential candidate was chosen or inspired by God? If you look other places like the UK for example this is still a doctrine of the Anglican church, The Russian Orthodox church uses a lot of the same ideas as does the Chinese communist party, the North Korean and Iranian regimes etc. etc. Then how is this a unique advantage that having an active shard participate in government offers? Okay so how is it better? The premise you propose is that an active shard is better for the people than one who encourages and inspires while not taking an active role. But all of your suggestions just seem to be replacing various forms of government with a brutal dictatorship even more ironclad than the final empire. So any power that the humans would have is only symbolic and they can only do exactly what the shard wants? How would it even be a democracy if the shard can just take control whenever they like and won't allow the humans to make decisions they disagree with? That's not a democracy, that's an absolute monarchy with an elected advisory council. Okay I really don't understand this one. You said the reason for controlling all governments on the planet was to prevent inter-state wars So to avoid inter-state wars you start inter-state wars, with the objective of putting yourself in charge? Well actually so far the non-interventionist shards like Cultivation, Endowment and Valor seem to not have this problem. And indeed we learned recently that the Wars in Era 4 Cosmere are largely driven by the shards And worlds without shards inhabiting them seem to be even better off. So I can't see any reason to believe that Shards intervening results in less suffering. @Schizoposting I've asked this question several times but you haven't answered, I'll assume it just got lost in these walls of text so I'll make it a little easier to see: What happens to this world government, where the Shard needs to intervene constantly when the Shard disappears without warning for 30-40 years?